Zusammenfassung

This experiment tested whether vista spaces such as rooms or plazas are encoded differently in memory compared to environmental spaces such as buildings or cities. Participants learned an immersive virtual environment by walking through it in one direction. The environment consisted of seven corridors forming a labyrinth within which target objects were located. The participants either learned this environmental space alone, or distant mountains provided additional compass information. In a third condition, this labyrinth was located within a big hall (i.e., a vista space) which allowed self-localisation with respect to the vista space of the hall. In the testing phase, participants were teleported to different locations in the environment and were asked to identify their location and heading first, and then to point towards previously learned targets. In general, participants self localized faster when oriented in the direction in which they originally learned each corridor. However, a subset of participants showed a different orientation specificity in their pointing performance originating more from the orientation of the mountains or the hall. These participants were identified in catch trials after the experiment. The results are first hints for a difference in memory for vista and environmental spaces.